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As Trump Blames DEI for Plane Crash, Report Shows Understaffed Air Traffic Control
One controller was doing the work of two people at the long-understaffed tower in the Washington, D.C. area.
Jan 30, 2025
A preliminary report on Wednesday night's crash involving a American Airlines commercial flight and a military helicopter revealed that the air traffic control tower in the vicinity of the accident was not staffed at "normal" levels, with just one controller handling a task that two employees ordinarily would have done in the high-stress job.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) report on Thursday said the staffing at the time of the crash was "not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic."
One controller was instructing helicopters near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport while also directing planes landing at and departing from the airport.
As The New York Timesreported, controllers use different radio frequencies to communicate with helicopter pilots and those flying planes.
"While the controller is communicating with pilots of the helicopter and the jet, the two sets of pilots may not be able to hear each other," according to the Times.
Air traffic controllers have been forced to work longer hours and workweeks in recent years, amid budget constraints and high turnover. In 2023, the tower near Washington, D.C. had 19 fully certified air traffic controllers. The FAA and the controllers' union say the optimal number is 30.
The FAA report was released shortly after President Donald Trump presented his own theory, without evidence, of why the crash that killed 67 people happened.
Trump suggested at a press briefing that under the Biden administration, the FAA had overseen a "diversity push" with a "focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities."
A reporter at the briefing asked whether Trump was saying the crash "was somehow caused and the result of diversity hiring" and called on him to offer evidence to support the claim.
"It just could have been," Trump said, adding that his administration has "a much higher standard than anybody else" for hiring federal employees.
Government Executive noted that the FAA began diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) hiring programs as early as 2013, which continued under the first Trump administration.
No identifying information has been reported about the air traffic controller who was handling the flight paths in question on Wednesday. American Airlines has also not released any personal information about who was piloting its aircraft; Army officials said the helicopter was piloted by one man and one woman, and a male staff sergeant was also on board.
Trump told reporters that he was confident that DEI hiring practices played a role in the crash because he has "common sense."
But critics including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) noted that Trump has taken several steps since taking office less than two weeks ago that could make air travel more dangerous for Americans in the long term.
"Trump gutted the aviation safety committee last week," said the congresswoman, referring to the Aviation Security Advisory Committee. "Air traffic controllers—already understaffed—got Trump's 'buyout' this week with a one-week ultimatum to decide. It's not DEI—it's him."
Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) also warned last week that Trump's federal hiring freeze could worsen understaffing among air traffic controllers.
"Hiring air traffic controllers is the number one safety issue according to the entire aviation industry," said Larsen at the time. "Instead of working to improve aviation safety and lower costs for hardworking American families, the administration is choosing to spread bogus DEI claims to justify this decision. I'm not surprised by the president's dangerous and divisive actions, but the administration must reverse course."
On Thursday, Larsen offered condolences for the families of the victims in the crash, and cautioned against speculating "on the causes of aviation accidents before we have the facts and the details."
"However, I know it's not DEI because it never is," said Larsen. "The National Transportation Safety Board will look at the causes and contributing factors of this accident. It is important to let the NTSB complete its work before we consider any potential policy response."
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Running in Circles on Racial Justice
Hard-fought victories in terms of racial justice in the U.S. are always met with a vicious backlash that makes progress a circular motion where we end up, it seems, where we began.
Jan 20, 2025
We keep running in circles when it comes to addressing racial justice in the U.S. This means that with every advance we almost come back to the same place and must fight the battles all over again. It doesn't mean that progress has not been made, but the progress retrogresses due to the immediate backlash that charges any advance to rectify past racial injustices as an affront to white people. At best there is an ebb and flow when it comes to rectifying the racial harms and damages of the past.
Race history and the many initiatives to rectify past wrongs is more of a circle than a linear line. It may be an expanding circle considering advances, but for every victory won there is a vicious throw back. It is almost like the 1993 movie Groundhog Day where morning after morning we awaken to history repeating itself, and where victories of racial justice are swept away by the courts or a change in the body politic. The struggle continues, and in many cases, we must begin again.
Every racial justice victory in the United States came about because of the Civil War and the various modes of resistance employed by victims of racial injustices. Mass protests and resistance has generally forced those in power to seek easy answers to placate the anger of the victims of racial injustice. But every attempt to satisfy and pacify the various protests is met with vociferous protests that erase hard fought victories. Just a few examples over four centuries in U.S. history serve as evidence. At each juncture of political protest those in power have historically responded with various initiatives designed to calm the uprisings and unrest. However, any advance is quickly eradicated under the guise of reverse discrimination.
If the United States is ever going to create a society of real growth and opportunity, it needs to stop chasing its tail.
After the Civil War, one man, one vote was militarily imposed resulting in the elections of Black men to numerous political offices in the South. With those advances came the passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865 abolishing slavery. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 granted citizenship to people born in the U.S. This served as a response to the 1857 Supreme Court Dred Scott decision that ruled Blacks were not citizens. The 14th Amendment passed in 1868 addressed and attempted to rectify state laws that abridged the rights of Black people. In 1870 the 15th Amendment was adopted that attempted to grant the right to vote to Black men (It should be noted that it wasn't until 1920 that women had the right to vote). In 1871 another Civil Rights Act was passed, also known as the Klu Klux Klan Act, which was a response to the growing terrorism used by whites against Blacks and advances in civil rights. These acts of terror were designed to take away the vote, enforce racial codes, and re-impose restrictions on Black people that had been granted post-Civil War. The backlash turned back the clock on the numerous advances that sought to correct the racial injustices of the past.
In 1865 Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, and Andrew Johnson became President. Andrew Johnson was a Southerner who worked to turn back the numerous advances made in racial justice. Under his administration amnesty was granted to Confederates. Confiscated lands (plantations) were returned to those who rebelled against the Union. The last remaining Union troops were withdrawn from the South in the Compromise of 1877 resulting in the reestablishment of pre-Civil War policies that completed the circle of restoring white Southern rule, reinstating the Black Codes, and allowing states to make policies that re-created de facto enslavement. The circle turned 360 degrees from voting rights, citizenship, anti-terrorism, social rectification, and attempts at inclusion to making it virtually impossible for Blacks to vote, live and work, or engage in the routines of life without fear and intimidation. Reconstruction, a response to racial injustices and calls to the nation to be inclusive and equitable, was short lived—from 1865-1877—and in that short time it ushered in amendments and civil rights acts. However, it was attacked from the beginning, sabotaged, and died because of white backlash. Most of the steps forward were spurned within 12 short years, and all the advances undone. The circle of racial justice took Blacks from winning to having to fight all over again.
In response to the racial justice organizing in the 20th century and the social unrest through demonstrations, sit-ins, and mass marches, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. This act prohibited discrimination in labor and attempted to end segregation in public facilities, public schools, and federally funded programs (keep in mind that 10 years prior, in 1954, the Supreme Court had already ruled segregation in public schools unconstitutional and ordered schools to desegregate). In 1965 the Voting Rights Act was passed to challenge the many schemes employed by states to abridge the ability of Blacks to vote. It also required Southern states to seek permission to substantively change voting practices. However in 2013, the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holdergutted these protections arguing that they were "based on 40-year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day." Hence voting protections enacted in 1965 were gutted effectively rendering the act a relic of the past. This is an example of the ebb, or the circular motion, of the nature of racial rectification in the U.S.
In the 21st century white resistance to the freedoms of Blacks to move and live within the society coupled with continued fears of whites towards Black people resulted in "Stand Your Ground" laws. These were boilerplate legislation written by the American Legislative Exchange Council and offered to state legislators which produced glaring and frightening consequences for Black people. Black people were shot for ringing the wrong door bell, or for being in the wrong neighborhood. But all of this played into a larger scheme to erode equal rights and turn back the clock on racial rectification.
The reaction to racial justice is relentless and comes whenever strides are made to make the nation more inclusive. The Black Lives Matter movement emerged, trying to hold people and society accountable. The movement was spurred on by the killings of Trayvon Martin and Ahmaud Arbery by vigilantes. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, and Philando Castile were examples of police killings. In the streets voices chanted, "Defund the police," and bodies blocked expressways and intersections. Political leaders and bodies across the country entertained discussions on the matter. Corporate America responded along with other entities employing "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" (DEI) measures. DEI became part of the discussion in the economic, political, and educational arena. The corporate world responded to the various outcries of disadvantaged groups that included racial and the LGBTQIA community and sought ways to demonstrate their desire to include and sell to these groups. Among those employing DEI initiatives were Amazon, Meta (FaceBook), McDonald's, Walmart, Ford, Lowe's, John Deere, American Airlines, Boeing, Jack Daniel's (Brown-Forman), Caterpillar, Harley-Davidson, Molson Coors, Nissan, Polaris, Toyota, and Anheuser-Busch.
The criticisms however grew louder as the "Turn Back the Clock" and Make America Great Again activists homed in on "wokeness" and began to attack those corporations for their support of racial justice and gay rights. The 2023 Supreme Court decision on college admissions, which struck down affirmative action programs declaring that race cannot be a factor in college admissions, was used to advance charges of reverse discrimination and of lowering standards. Then with the election of President Donald Trump the attacks on DEI found greater energy and corporations demonstrated lesser courage. Each of the corporations mentioned have since rolled back or eliminated their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs. This is another example of a 360-degree turn in the struggle for racial justice and inclusion within the society, culture, and workplace.
Blacks have been historically wronged and remain disadvantaged. We continue to lag behind our white counterparts in terms of education, economics, and wealth. If progress is linear then we could surmise that at some point Blacks would catch up to whites. Instead, in most categories, the gaps and disparities have grown wider. The only way to explain this phenomenon is that we are engaged in a circle of gaining and then losing. The circle may grow larger signifying the progress being made, but the hard-fought victories in terms of racial justice are always met with a vicious backlash that makes progress a circular motion where we end up, it seems, where we began.
If the United States is ever going to create a society of real growth and opportunity, it needs to stop chasing its tail. It needs to change its belief that correcting past wrongs is somehow to penalize someone else. The irony is that those who complain about reverse discrimination are the ones who have been the beneficiaries of a system of discrimination. A strong society must come to terms with its history; tell the stories of the good, the bad, and the ugly; and muster the courage to create and maintain policies, programs, and systems that correct the sins of the past.
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Zuckerberg Extols 'Masculine Energy' in Corporate America as Meta Kills DEI Programs
"Remember, Zuckerberg built Facebook not for social connection but to rate the hotness of his female college mates," noted one critic.
Jan 11, 2025
As numerous U.S. corporations bend to the right with the political winds swirling around Republican President-elect Donald Trump's imminent return to power, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is following up on his company's termination of its fact-checking program by ending its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and praising "masculine energy" in corporate America.
"I think a lot of the corporate world is, like, pretty culturally neutered," Zuckerberg said during an interview with the eponymous host of "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast on Friday. Meta is the parent company of social platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
Explaining that he has "three sisters, no brothers" and "three daughters, no sons," Zuckerberg continued: "So I'm, like, surrounded by girls and women, like, my whole life. And it's like...I don't know, there's something, the kind of masculine energy, I think, is good."
"And obviously, you know, society has plenty of that, but I think corporate culture was really like trying to get away from it," he said. "And I do think that... all these forms of energy are good. And I think having a culture that, like, celebrates the aggression a bit more has its own merits that are really positive."
The tech industry is built on 'masculine energy', a bro--no girls allowed--culture. Remember Zuckerberg built Facebook not for social connection but to rate the hotness of his female college mates. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
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— Amy Diehl, Ph.D. (@amydiehl.bsky.social) January 11, 2025 at 8:09 AM
Zuckerberg elaborated:
I do think that if you're a a woman going into a company, it probably feels like it's too masculine. Right? And it's like there isn't enough of the kind of the energy that you may naturally have. And it probably feels like there are all these things that are set up that are biased against you. And that's not good either, 'cause you want women to be able to succeed.
But I think these things can... go a little far. And I think it's one thing to say we want to be kind of, like, welcoming and make a good environment for everyone. And I think it's another to basically say that masculinity is bad. And I, I just think we kind of swung culturally to that part of the... spectrum where, you know, it's all like, okay, masculinity is toxic. We have to, like, get rid of it completely.
No... Both of these things are good, right? It's like, you want, like, feminine energy, you want masculine energy... I think that that's all good. But I do think the corporate culture sort of had swung towards being this somewhat more neutered thing. And I didn't really feel that until I got involved in martial arts, which I think is still a more, much more masculine culture.
While some social media observers attributed Zuckerberg's shift to factors like "the power of gym bro masculinity," others noted the rightward shift in corporate America accompanying Trump's White House return and Republicans' control of both houses of Congress.
"Zuck is a Cuck": Meta's Billionaire Bends The Knee to MAGA Mark Zuckerberg joins a rogue's gallery of billionaires capitulating to Donald Trump's threats and promoting MAGA's agenda against truth, democracy, and diversity for the sake of self-preservation. thelefthook.substack.com/p/zuck-is-a-...
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— Wajahat Ali (@wajali.bsky.social) January 10, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the wave of companies ending or dialing back diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. The growing list includes McDonald's, Walmart, Boeing, Molson Coors, Ford, Harley-Davidson, John Deere, Amazon, and—as of Friday—Meta.
According to an internal memo from Meta vice president of human resources Janelle Gale viewed by several media outlets, Meta is immediately ending DEI programs in hiring, training, and supplier selection because the "legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing."
"The term 'DEI' has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others," Gale explained.
Meta's move follows Tuesday's announcement that the company is ending its third-party fact-checking program because it is "too politically biased" and replacing it with community notes à la X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter and owned by Elon Musk, who will co-chair the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency.
The announcement also said Meta "will be moving the trust and safety teams that write our content policies and review content out of California to Texas and other U.S. locations."
As part of its broad new "free expression" policy, Meta will also permit certain speech widely considered hateful by human rights defenders.
According to training materials
viewed byThe Intercept and other media outlets, Meta users will be able to say things like "immigrants are grubby, filthy pieces of shit," "Black people are more violent than whites," "Italians are dickheads," women are "household objects" or "property," and transgender people are mentally ill. Calling trans people "trannies" or "it" is now also acceptable on Meta sites.
I got a warning for posting "you are an evil man" to Zuck but not for posting "you are a degenerate tranny." Real nice system they have at Meta.
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— Alejandra Caraballo (@esqueer.net) January 10, 2025 at 7:50 PM
The New York Timesreported Friday that Meta has ordered its offices in Silicon Valley, New York, and Texas to remove the tampons which had been offered to transgender and nonbinary employees who use men's restrooms. The report also said that Meta has removed trans and nonbinary themes from its Messenger chat app.
Zuckerberg has also appointed UFC CEO Dana White, a friend and supporter of Trump, to Meta's board of directors,
explaining, "I've admired him as an entrepreneur and his ability to build such a beloved brand."
These moves followed a November meeting between Trump and Zuckerberg at the former's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, after which Meta reportedly also gave $1 million to the president-elect's inauguration fund.
Zuckerberg's alignment with key elements of Trumpism represents a stark departure from just a few months ago, when, in a new book, Trump accused him of inimical "plotting" during the 2020 election and said he threatened to imprison the tech billionaire for life if he did so again in 2024.
Now, Zuckerberg's blasting outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden. He told Rogan Friday that during the coronavirus pandemic, Biden administration officials would "call up and, like, scream... and curse" at Meta leaders over Covid-19 misinformation.
Some internet users poked fun at Meta's new policies, with one popular meme satirically claiming that Zuckerberg "died of coronavirus and complications from syphilis."
Who needs dumb old facts anyways?
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— JonZoidberg ( @jonzoidberg.bsky.social) January 7, 2025 at 8:42 PM
But others took a more serious view of Zuckerberg's about-face, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asserting this week that "these changes reveal that Meta seems less interested in freedom of expression as a principle and more focused on appeasing the incoming U.S. administration."
"Meta has long been criticized by the global digital rights community, as well as by artists, sex worker advocacy groups, LGBTQ+ advocates, Palestine advocates, and political groups, among others," EFF added. "A corporation with a history of biased and harmful moderation like Meta [needs] a careful, well-thought-out, and sincere fix that will not undermine broader freedom of expression goals."
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